Clubbers’ Decktionary: Cosmic (disco)
15 May 2012
Cosmic (disco), adj/proper noun, aka Afro Cosmic, also Space Disco
Originally an highly eclectic, down-tempo (90-105 BPM) style, which nowadays generally exhibits a lot of space, reverb and echo/delay in the production, bubbling synths, delicate keys, langurous guitars and percussion instruments more often found in world music than disco.
Origins: The Cosmic Club in Lake Garda, outside Verona, northern Italy, where Daniel Baldelli (pictured above) was a resident DJ, 1979 – 1984, and used to mix all manner of weird and wonderful, psychedelic nuggets from his collection, B sides and other music which was ‘not really made for clubs’, often playing records at the wrong speed to augment their ‘cosmic’ effect, including: Ravel’s seminal Bolero (which famously inspired a million acts of sexual congress, thanks to that scene in hit 1979 film 10) , Mike Oldfield’s Foreign Affair, Steve Winwood’s Spanish Dancer, Cat Stevens’ Was Dog A Doughnut, Killing Joke’s Requiem, XTC’s It’s Nearly Africa, Yellow Magic Orchestra’s pre-8bit/chiptune classic, Computer Games, Jean Michel Jarre’s Magnetic Fields, Monsoon’s Wings Of The Dawn, Depeche Mode’s Shout, Rah Band’s Electric Fling, Koto’s Italo classic, Chinese Revenge, Brazilian rhythm tracks and bits of Steve Reich, Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba or Jorge Ben. Baldelli’s contemporary, Beppe Loda, prefers to call the style Afro Cosmic, laying equal claim to its genesis, although it’s Baldelli who tours more successfully as a DJ to this day.
A couple of otherwise unheard of DJs from New York, Tom Sison and Bob Day, who bagged a residency at a club called Baia degli Angeli (near Baldelli’s birthplace in Cattolica, outside Rimini), 1974-76, were Baldelli’s main source of inspiration for the more technical style of DJing now known as mixing – until that point a technique completely unheard of in Europe.
Key figures: Norwegians Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas have been at the vanguard of the Norwegian cosmic disco renaissance of the last decade via their respective Feedelity and Full Pupp labels, with their own, tripped-out take also labelled ‘space disco’. Fellow Norwegians Diskjokke and Todd Terje are also significant, though the latter is more famous for his re-edits of original disco classics and obscurities than his original productions. Full Pupp is co-run by Stevie Kotey, formerly of Chicken Lips, who also releases quirky cosmic gems through his own Bear Funk imprint, while Chicken Lips’ brains Andy Meecham has ploughed a similarly psychedelic furrow as The Emperor Machine, alonsgide Padded Cell (both via DC Recordings).
An edited version of this feature was originally published in August 2011 by The List magazine. It has been reproduced with their permission.
